


Track One - Toska

by TrebleandBass (May_Seward)



Series: Lost in Translation [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Basically i couldnt think of a real classical music equivalent to the grand prix so i made one up, Episode 1 AU, Gen, They perform in the International Classical Music Festival, Viktor plays the cello, Yuko works at a music studio, Yuuri plays the piano, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 08:21:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9811097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May_Seward/pseuds/TrebleandBass
Summary: Russian: ˈtō-skə (n.) A sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without a specific cause; a longing with nothing to long for.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was looking up words in other languages that have no equivalent in English (because why not) and I'm always looking for an excuse to write a musician AU so of course this happened.

Viktor Nikiforov had decided months ago that there was nothing worse than feeling empty. It was a black hole that ate at him, tearing a little more of his passion away every day until all that was left was a dull ache and dead cerulean eyes.

Not even his cello brought him joy anymore, the music reduced to a series of pitches and rhythms. Clinical and dull, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn't even bring himself to feel sad about it and this was coming from a musician it was said could make the cello cry.

He wasn't even looking forward to the International Classical Music Festival, hadn't even picked up his bow to practice or a pencil to write this year's programme. The festival used to be his favourite part of the year. The music was always new and different, none of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies or Beethoven's sonatas were played there. It was a celebration of new talent, new compositions and a way to prove to the world that classical music didn't have to belong to the past. It was always beautiful and surprising and different. It brought in people who usually would never even go near anything that wasn't on the Top 40.

But Viktor had not only always been a cellist but a composer. Given the blank pieces of manuscript paper that had mocked him every time he walked into his music room for months, he didn't think he could say that anymore. He needed inspiration, he had decided. He needed a spark.

* * *

 

Katsuki Yuuri was a disappointment and he knew it. He had gotten the gig at the Classical Music Festival exactly once and blown his shot so spectacularly he was surprised even his parents were speaking to him. Too many wrong notes, a chord that was so bungled the entire front row had winced. He didn't deserve to play on the same stage as the greats like Viktor Nikiforov. He couldn't even compose his own music - his music teacher Celestino always did it for him. Nikiforov wasn’t just a cut above, he was leaps and bounds above Yuuri’s level.

But it was difficult to give up on your only source of solace, even when it is also the main source of despair. Yuuri didn’t know how else to fill the void inside him that bitter disappointment had left. On a piano bench is where he felt his most comfortable. The only way he felt he could express himself was with the keys at his fingertips acting as a conduit connected directly to his heart. There was no other way to release his desperation and disappointment, his despair and his grief. He couldn’t find the words. He couldn’t even really find the notes, but Viktor Nikiforov, his hero, could.

Yuuri remembered sitting backstage as Viktor had performed one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful songs he had ever heard. A single, unaccompanied cello crying out, the sound soaring over the heads of the audience, out into the night. It was haunting and full of longing, of some unimaginable pain and suffocating, heartstopping loneliness. Yuuri had imagined a prince in a tower, locked away from the rest of the world calling out for help, searching for any sign of freedom from a high, lonely window.

He hadn’t been back in his home town of Hasetsu for more than a day when he found himself standing outside his favourite place: Hill Castle Music Studio. It wasn’t particularly pretty looking, but Yuuri had spent a lot of his life there. It was as much of a home to him as the inn his parents owned that he had grown up in.

‘Sorry, we’re closed!’ called a muffled voice as he entered, somewhere from behind a large collection of concert drums. A head popped up from behind them and Yuuri recognised one of his best friends with a small smile.

‘Hey, Yuko,’ he said, trying to hide his nervousness. He hadn’t seen her in years and didn’t exactly know how he was going to be received. ‘Long time, no see.’

‘Is that you Yuuri?’ she gasped. Yuuri nodded. ‘Don’t just stand there!’ she shrieked and vaulted the drums and bounded towards the piano, coming to stop with it between them. She leaned over it towards Yuuri, an eager expression making her eyes sparkle. ‘Tell me how you’ve been!’

Yuuri winced. ‘Fine?’

Yuko seemed to know not to press because she relaxed a little. ‘I bet you came here to play, huh? Go right ahead. I’m just closing up.’

‘You don’t mind?’ Yuuri checked but she shook her head.

‘No. Besides, I’m guessing you don’t want an audience.’

‘Thanks,’ Yuuri smiled gratefully and headed to the grand piano in the middle of the room.

He fingered the lower register of the piano before him with his left hand absently. The first few slow bars of Victor’s song echoing from the depths of the piano with a growl. It wasn’t like when Victor had played it at all, soft like velvet, coaxing the music out of the strings like he was calming a baby bird. Somehow it still seemed to fit though. The piano made it sound more urgent, less like a call than a scream. Yuuri liked that about it.

Yuuri thought for a moment. ‘Uh... Yuko? There’s something I really want you to hear.’

‘A new song?’ Yuko asked, eyebrows shooting into her fringe.

‘Not exactly,’ Yuuri replied and prepared to play a different piece. He put his fingers to the keys and played a few low notes in a pattern she didn’t recognise and then just as she was about to ask what he was doing, his fingers sprung into action.

Each performer at the ICMF had to perform two pieces of music; an up-to-five minute short composition and an up-to-ten minute long piece. Victor Nikiforov’s virtuoso performance the previous season was his long piece. It had blown the audience out of the water and was the most technically difficult cello piece Yuuri had ever heard, all quavers and triplets, leaps and high cascades. It had visibly winded him just to play it, but when the final note had faded, it had received the most unanimous standing ovation of any night in the entire four-month festival.

And Yuuri was playing it on the piano.

He had transposed it so the melody was higher on the right hand and had added the chords and key notes that gave it a greater depth of sound. It was technically very difficult, even with two hands on the piano so Yuuri had to push everything he had into it. He bent low over the keys, squeezing his eyes shut as he played, channeling all his feeling into the music. He wasn’t Victor Nikiforov, but he felt more confident on the piano than the cello, and the arrangement had been his pet project since the end of the touring season.

As the final note rang out, Yuko stared at him, stunned. There were real, genuine tears in her eyes.

‘That was...’ she choked out. ‘AMAZING! You arranged Victor’s piece! You made it better!’

Yuuri blinked. If there was one person who could possibly match him for the title of Victor Nikiforov’s Number One Crazy Fanboy, it was Yuko, who had opened his mind to the cellist’s genius in the first place. Victor was probably the only person she loved as much as her husband and three daughters. From Yuko, there could be no higher compliment.

Yuuri found himself blushing.

‘Honestly,’ Yuko continued. ‘I thought you’d be depressed.

‘Yeah, well,’ Yuuri shrugged. ‘Being depressed get’s pretty old after a while.’

Behind Yuko, something bumped the leg of the piano.

‘Hey!’ Yuko commanded. ‘Get out of there you three!’ Three young girls crawled out from underneath the piano. ‘You remember my girls, don’t you Yuuri? They’re a bit bigger now.’

Hi,” Yuuri smiled softly at three - no, two girls.

“uhh... where is Loo?” Yuko asked her daughter's suspiciously.

“I'm here!” another little girl's voice  sounded from behind an old double bass and the missing triplet joined her sisters, pocketing something that looked like a smartphone as she did so. “Hi, Yuuri!” She cried and her sister's joined her in a babbling chorus of... praise? Insults? It was too difficult to tell.

It felt good to be home.

* * *

 

Viktor hadn't left his apartment in St Petersburg for three days. He had spent the weekend curled up with his poodle, watching terrible daytime television and scrolling through various social media, and when Monday had come around he hadn't felt inclined to meet his tutor for their annual pre-season game plan and postponed. Yakov was furious, but that had never stopped Viktor before. It sure as hell wasn't going to stop him now.

Intellectually, he knew he was just postponing the inevitable. He would eventually have to tell Yakov that he had nothing and that the music teacher should put all his focus on the new Russian rising star under his tutelage, violinist Yuri Plisetsky. If he couldn't play with passion, with spark then he couldn't play at all and that was that.

Viktors own name titling a video in his newsfeed caught his attention, accompanied by the title of his long piece from last seasons ICMF tour. _Pianist Katsuki Yuuri cover’s Victor Nikiforov’s “Stay Clost To Me”._

Curious, he tapped on it.

A dark haired pianist Viktor recognised from somewhere sat at a piano, surrounded by various other instruments, late afternoon light filtering through the windows. In profile as he was, Viktor thought the pianist looked rather defeated. Perhaps he was just projecting. It was what this particular song had come to mean for him, after all.

The piece had been written as part of Viktors two-part ICMF programme, a seven minute cello solo titled _Stay Close To Me._ Viktors theme last festival has been toska, and though on the surface, it might not have fitted the theme perfectly in terms of mood, the story it told was more in keeping with the theme than anyone realised. His five minute piece had been a vent. Entitled, rather unimaginatively, _Toska_ , it had started as an outlet for his confused emotions and turned into a piece that had been The closest thing he could come to that explained how he was feeling. _Stay Close To Me_ had been less of an explanation than a plea, a siren song to music itself. It was also a challenge Victor had set for himself, a last ditch attempt to reclaim what he had lost.

In the end, it had failed miserably.

But perhaps, he thought as he watched the pianist in the video, perhaps whatever deity of inspiration there was out there just might have smiled on that piece after all. Perhaps he had just chosen the wrong instrument. Instead of the cello, he decided, he should have been composing for Yuuri Katsuki.

The first few bars were slow, unfamiliar, setting a rather haunting scene and then, like light bursting through shadows, the real song began.

To Viktor it was a revelation. Katsuki held nothing back and had added a few of his own elements, the piano filling out the music the way a cello couldn't do. He had rearranged elements too, putting a section from the beginning further into the middle section. It was still recognizably Viktors piece but it had become something more. As Viktor listened to the melody he knew so well, put to him in such a new surprising way, he thought he heard something else, the ghost of a cello playing along, keys and strings weaving together, but upon the second viewing, he realised it was all in his head.

This time, he focused solely on Katsuki. The young man had played in the last ICMF but choked at the final hurdle, making too many mistakes at the showcase to get an award. There was no sign of that here though. Katsuki played like his heart was in fire. He took Viktors piece and made it fit the theme in ways Viktor hadn't. Viktors _Stay Close To Me_ was a desperate scramble to keep from losing something. Katsuki's _Stay Close To Me_ was an expression of another kind of desperation, the soul crushing pain of getting so close to something magnificent and elusive only to have it ripped away.

There was a determination in Katsukis performance that inspired Victor. Something in his eyes that looked a lot like a spark.

* * *

Yuuri didn't quite understand why he was being accosted by a dog but he had to admit there was something about the unconditional love of a pet that was difficult to surpass. The poodle looked just like his own recently passed beloved pet, but bigger and after a moment his brain began making illogical connections.

'Cute, isn't he?' Yuuri's mother asked as she stepped deftly past him to avoid spilling whatever good she had prepared for one of their many guests. 'He belongs to a new arrival I think. Can't remember his name. Silver hair, accent.'

Yuuri's eyes widened. 'Makkachin?' He asked the poodle cautiously. The dog sat back and barked cheerfully and Yuuri just about had a heart attack. 'Where is he?' Yuuri demanded.

Yuuri decided that this must be some kind of dream. Nothing made sense. A world class Russian cellist was staying at the inn and had apparently brought his dog along and when Yuuri finally found him,  he was...

Very, _very_ naked.

'Yuuri!' The naked man stood up and Yuuri was struck by lightning then and there, smited where he stood because  _this wasn't real. This couldn't be real_ but the naked man was talking about being _Yuuri's tutor_ so it must be real because not even in his wildest dreams would Yuuri ever have been able to imagine such a scenario but there was a problem because the naked man - Viktor Nikiforov had stopped talking now and was waiting for Yuuri to say something.

Stupidly, like a self-sabbotaging idiot, Yuuri said, 'I'm not... I'm not competing in the ICMF this year.'

Viktor frowned. 'But why not? Don't you want to? You play so beautifully.'

Yuuri had already been blushing (because hello! Viktor was still very naked!) But at his words Yuuri turned a deeper shade of red.

'I uh... no I...' Yuuri struggled to form basic sentences. He closed his eyes tightly and tried again. 'I want to. More than anything.' He opened his eyes and Viktor was still there (still naked) and still smiling.

'Excellent!' he declared. 'We must get to work.'

**Author's Note:**

> This is gonna be a series. Looks like I am trash now.


End file.
